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My night at the Web…their night at the station!

 

My move from Jamaica, Queens to Astoria was courtesy of Edine, a friend I met years ago and has been my constant companion whenever she is off from her busy schedules working during and after office hours.  She is an administrative assistant by day and a nanny by dark till late evening or until she is relieved from her duty by the family she works for.  Her full name is Edine Bocalan or as everyone fondly calls her Miss B.  She is Edwin’s room mate in the three-bedroom apartment turned into a four-bedroom one due to the wall they mounted that separated the extra room from the living room, which they share with two other tenants, located along Broadway by 42nd Street.  Edwin, on the other hand, has been my friend for quite a long time that dated back to our days in the SGV/Arthur Andersen office in Manila years ago where we both worked as auditors.

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The Day After: Puri o Buhay (Honor or Life)

 

This is a continuation of the scary incident from last night.

It was  a bad night and I felt so exhausted from tossing and turning for most part of the night, yet I have no choice but to wake up this early in the morning and get myself prepared for the day’s work.  I made a cup of coffee and toasted a slice of bread which I generously smothered with butter and some jam: my usual breakfast daily.  While I was taking a shower, the life-threatening ordeal, came back to my mind.  “Thank God!” I said to myself.  “I am still alive.”  As the warm water splashes over my skin from head to toe, I was telling myself I will never forget this lesson since it happened during my normal night from school to home.  Even if I have to take a cab by myself I could care less about how much I have to pay as long as I get home safe.

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Being at the wrong place…at the wrong time

 

No matter how physically and mentally taxing it is to combine working in audit and reviewing for my CPA exams are, I am determined to excel in both.  I was working as an auditor for a mid-size accounting firm in Midtown Manhattan during day time, roaming in the five boroughs doing city program audits and by night I am a student.  After my hectic schedules with the audit clients all day I have to rush back to Pennsylvania Hotel across Madison Square Garden to attend my evening CPA review classes.  On weekends and some weeknights I also make time to finish my school credits through correspondence schooling with Louisiana State University for units in US Business Law and US Taxation, which is a requirement by NY State Board before they can release my CPA license when I passed the tests.  Every night I have to take two subways to go home: E train from Madison Square Garden/34th Street Station to 14th Street/8th Avenue station and then I transfer to an L train all the way to the end of the line to Canarsie/Rockaway Parkway.  The last class normally ends at 10:45pm and by the time I reached Canarsie it is about 11:30 or almost midnight on some days.  I would take a carpooling taxicabs where you ride in a black car with 3 or 4 other passengers and you are dropped one by one in front of your gate.  Most of the time I am the last or second to the last passenger since most of them get off before my street in East 92nd Street.  Not too bad for a cab fare since I only pay $8 as compared to $15 or $20 if I will take a cab by myself.  During day time, after getting off at the last stop in Rockaway Parkway, I just take the bus line B42 to Avenue M and walk 6 blocks more to E 92nd Street.

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Brooklyn, my first borough

 

As I stepped out of the airplane from an ATA flight from O’Hare to La Guardia, I was excited that Kuya Frank was there to pick me up.  Well, he is a familiar face since I remember meeting him from a beauty contest I watched years ago organized by my former high school in our hometown of Taytay, where Kuya Frank’s niece is one of the beauty contestants.  In my head, I was thinking at least I don’t have to bring a piece of paper with either his name or mine and I do not have to describe the color of my clothes anymore.

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Big Apple…the city that never sleeps

 

When I came to the US, I landed first in Chicago, Illinois.  Chicago, known as the windy city due to the breeze coming from the shores of Lake Michigan.  True to its name, it is windy in Chicago but some information says that Chicago is not the windiest city in the United States.  In fact, the term “windy city” was popularized by a New York city editor by the name of Charles Dana during the bidding for 1893 exposition where Chicago and Cincinnati were rival cities vying for the exposition.  Unfortunately, Dana favored Cincinnati but Chicago won the bidding.  Some also says that it is windy because of the effects of the wind that get sucked down in between tall buildings, which the engineers and architects in the past did not foresee the effect it will create.

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Introduction…the beginning: Hello World, Universe rather!

 

To borrow the phrase from the now famous beauty queen: Hello World…Universe rather.

Hi! My name is Eric.

15 years ago, I landed in the USA…a boy with nothing but big dreams in his pocket.  To see the beauty of America, different from my home country.  Different from other countries in the continents where I was privileged to visit or do humanitarian work in: Asia, Europe, Africa or even in South Pacific.  I sat foot in a foreign land with nothing but grin on my face and a hope that one day I will belong here.  Those years were full of precious experience.  Exciting, happy most of the times and sad sometimes: I got to work for one of the Big 4 audit firms; I got to pass and obtain my CPA license in the state of New York; I got to see and explore Disney World in Florida not just once but probably more than twice; I got to see numerous Broadway shows; I got to fulfill my dream of singing with a piano accompaniment in front of other people every Sunday at the church; and most of all, I got married which I never thought in a million years.

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